


The Unhappy Principality

by TourmalineQueen



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale likes to feel emotions and then Regrets it, Aziraphale likes to read Sad Things sometimes, Aziraphale may have told Oscar all about The Arrangement, Aziraphale's relationship with Oscar Wilde, Crowley's relationship with emotions, I don't know if this is sad fluff or proper angst, M/M, No beta we fall like Crowley, Nobody dies that isn't already historically dead, and Oscar may have taken some inspiration from it, much as Crowley might be Put Out by that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 05:03:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20808974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineQueen/pseuds/TourmalineQueen
Summary: Aziraphale rereads at least one of Oscar Wilde's works each year. This time around, post non-pocalypse he's picked upThe Happy Princeand he's Having Emotions. Sleepy Crowley isn't entirely sure what to do (at first). Then they start talking literature and how they may have influenced Oscar Wilde.





	The Unhappy Principality

Crowley wasn't entirely sure what it was that woke him, at first. Then he felt it again: a gentle wave of sorrow like a flood an inch or two high - enough to dampen moods (or to keep the metaphor going, carpets) but not devastating. He lifted his hand and thumped around Aziraphale's side of the bed only to find it both empty and cold. ANother wave of sadness (not actaul water) hit him, from across the room.

"Angel?" Crowley called, in a small, sleepily worried voice.

"Oh, dear, did I wake you?" Aziraphale said softly.

"Not sure," Crowley answered honestly. Another wave of sadness hit him, definitely from the direction of Aziraphale's voice. 

He shuffled around the bed and managed to make his way upright. The angel was seated across the room, in a comfy armchair covered in blankets and wearing soft pyjamas featuring his favoured tartan, that Crowley was sure had not been there the night before but which look very inviting. In the dimness, the reading light behind the chair looked almost like a halo over Aziraohale's head, and made his features difficult to read. Despite this, Crowley was now sure that the wave of sadness that had woken him (not to mention the others) had come from Aziraphale. 

"What you doing over there?" Crowley asked, trying (and probably failing) not to sound petulant. Sleeping beside the angel was a new and exciting development and Crowley Did Not Want to go back to sleeping alone.

"Oh, my dear, I wanted to read and I didn't wish to disturb you, you look so peaceful when you sleep. And I knew the light would, ah," Aziraphale began, then trailed off into silence. Crowley said nothing, knowing Aziraphale was prevaricating. Crowley was right, and Aziraphale spoke again, with a great deal more honesty this time: "I wanted to read one of Oscar's books, dear, and I know you don't especially like it when I do that. But I've come over a bit maudlin, it seems, and I have disturbed you. I am sorry, Crowley, dear." The angel reached a hand to brush at his face, presumably to wipe away tears invisible in the awkwardly-lit room.

Crowley worked his jaw and made a few stammering sounds, before waving his hand dismissively. "'Ssss fine, angel. Jussst don't like the sad feeling in the room."

Aziraphale tensed and sounded stricken. "You could _feel_ that? Oh, my dear, I hadn't even considered that. I just, well, I sometimes like to read things that make me, er, ah, well, that make me feel emotions."

Crowley glared at the lamp behind Aziraphale that was making it so hard to make out the angel's features in the otherwise dim room, and shrugged. "So do lotssss of people, angel. No harm done. Hang on - is that why you like Shakespeare's gloomy plays?"

"I never thought about it much at the time, but I suppose so," said the angel thoughtfully. "At any rate, I don't know quite why I picked this out of all of dear Oscar's works, except that the little bird sometimes reminds me of you."

Crowley actually got out of bed and made his way over to Aziraphale, chair and held out a hand, "may I?"

Aziraphale handed over the book willingly. Crowley took it, looked at the open page and raised his brows, "a children's story? And one of the characters - a bird, no less - reminds you of me?"

This close, Crowley had no trouble reading Aziraphale's face, and a number of emotions flitted across his features, mainly a sort of low-key sadness, the same kind that had bothered Crowley enough to disturb his sleep. The angel took a deep, if not strictly necessary, breath and looked up at Crowley, who was still standing. 

"Well, you see, you weren't speaking to me, hadn't dome for quite some time, and I... Well, I rather needed a friend to talk to. I couldn't exactly speak to another angel about why I needed to _buck up_," he shuddered. "Imagine what they would have done to you if I had. And, well, I suspect Oscar retained more of his memories of our chats than he let on," Aziraphale squirmed guiltily.

"You told Oscar Wilde about our Arrangement and the Holy Water Thing, and then you meddled with his memory? _Angel_," Crowley whistled in admiration, "you really were good at the whole demonic side of the Arrangement, weren't you?"

Aziraphale looked uncomfortable with the praise, and Crowley immediately regretted his teasing words. He sat on the angel's lap and pulled him into a much needed hug.

"At first I thought the Prince represented Oscar and the Swallow, Bodie," Aziraphale began, slightly muffled by Crowley's silk-clad shoulder, "but sometimes when I was thinking of you it struck me how like the swallow you are, you and the swallow are both quite dashing in your black and red, and, well, then I grow a bit maudlin, missing you."

"Well," Crowley replied, drawing the word out so it seemed to gain a few syllables, and studiously ignoring the way Aziraphale had casually described him as _dashing_, "swallows do seem to like my colour palette. But I think the similarities begin and end there, angel. I think it's very superficial similarities. And as for _missing me_ I am right here, angel, and you could have just stayed in bed with me and not felt maudlin. But I'm definitely nothing like the swallow in that story. No fancy Egypt to escape off to, for one thing."

"Oh? What about those miracles you performed in my name? Feeding the poor, blessing the creative types, and I know I didn't ask you to protect the children at the Ark or after. All those things the Swallow does, when asked by the Happy Prince." 

"I suppose, but what about the Prince? You really think Wilde created him based on the Principality of his acquaintance? I mean, you always cared, even in Eden, you cared about everyone, but the Prince lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci and didn't give two shits about anyone," Crowley argued, drawing back a bit from the hug, but stroking long fingers up and down Aziraphale's nape. 

"I wish you wouldn't use such vulgar language about anyone other than our former employers," Aziraphale grumbled, prompting an amused snort from Crowley. "But I doubt Oscar would base the Prince off me, I was very much in the periphery of his life." 

"Peripheral enoguh to get signed first editions of everything he ever published," Crowley groused without any real heat - they'd had this grumble-argument numerous times over the decades, it was mostly out of principle that he said it, rather than any real desire to rehash the we-were-on-a-break business of his slept-through century. Go-Sat-_Someone_, Crowley hoped Aziraphale never found out about Friends, the TV show. 

"_And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy_," Aziraphale quoted without opening the book. "Remind you of anyone?" 

Crowley laughed aloud at that. 

"_'I will stay with you always,' said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince's feet. All the next day he sat on the Prince's shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands_," Aziraphale quoted, yet again without opening or even looking at the book. "I know you showed all the kingdoms of the world to at least one man, and I know you visited all the same places I did, and I'm certain I said something about how eloquently you speak to Oscar. I must have done. I spent at least a year barely able to shut up about my dear Crowley. I submit to you my thesis, you are, in fact the inspiration for the Swallow in The Happy Prince." 

"And would that make you the Happy Principality?" Crowley asked, serious despite the wordplay. "If I let you say I inspired your dear Oscar to create a beloved children's character? It's really not on-brand for me, you know. Demon, and whatnot. Besides, it's like old Bill's gloomy plays, they die at the end and - and God - the character of God - She rewards them by eternally seaprating them: the swallow in the garden of Paradise and the Prince in the City of Gold. Surely if they were to be rewarded for their love and good deeds they should spend eternity together?" 

"You know how the story goes?" Aziraphale asked, genuinely surprised. 

"Warlock liked it," Crowley said, avoiding Aziraphale's gaze. "It was his favourite. Except that bit at the end where God rewards the swallow and the Prince for their altruism and love by keeping them in two separate afterlives. They should have ended up together. Warlock said it and I agree." 

"I agree, too," Aziraphale murmured, then asked, "it was Warlock's favourite - why didn't he ever say? I could have given him -" 

"I didn't really want him asking too many questions about how Brother Francis was somehow the ex of a great literary hero who died in Paris in 1900 - especially when he was stuck with that homophobe of an attaché for a father," said Crowley, without malice. "I do worry about the lad, sometimes." 

"We ought to be able to track him down easily enough. They came back safely from the Middle East a week after the failed armageddon," Aziraphale said, soothingly, rubbing small circles on Crowley's back. They both loved the simple intimacy of being able to touch one another when and how they pleased. "I'm afraid I've quite lost the run of this conversation." 

"You were sad, reading the Happy Prince- ironic title that one, since it makes you _maudlin_. And you were arguing that I inspired the character of the Swallow. Which I disagree with, but cannot disprove, damnit," Crowley supplied. 

"I think we had both best get back to bed. We can argue this in greater detail some other time," Aziraphale said, decisively. 

"Are you still feeling maudlin, though," Crowley asked gently. "Don't want you trying to sleep feeling maudlin. Bad dreams when you feel maudlin." 

"I feel considerably better now than earlier, my dearest," said Aziraphale. "Although I don't especially feel like sleep. I think perhaps I'll remain awake and keep watch over you, if that won't disturb you." 

"Course not. If you don't mind getting cuddled half to discorporation," Crowley said slyly. 

Aziraphale stood, holding Crowley like a precious armful of demonic treasure and strode to the bed, dropping the demon gracelessly onto the duvet, and following him under the covers. Soon only a tartan-sockclad foot could be seen peeking out from underneath. 

**Author's Note:**

> I ran out of story too close to the end. Defo going to revisit this when I'm more awake.


End file.
